Viewing data transfer using barcode or QR code and signal capture device

ABSTRACT

A television broadcast receiver is provided, for example a set-top box or television set for terrestrial, cable and/or satellite broadcasts, comprising a memory for storing channel view data encoding channel view events and a processor. The processor stores channel view data in the memory and generates a signal encoding the channel view data. The signal is an audio and/or video signal. The processor then causes the signal to be presented to a viewer. Further provided is a method of receiving information about channel view events from a broadcast receiver. A signal encoding channel view data is received. The signal is a still image or video signal and/or an audio signal and the channel view data encodes channel view events. The signal is decoded to obtain the channel view data and the channel view data is decoded to obtain information about channel view events.

The present invention relates to transferring data relating to zappinginformation, in particular information about channel view events, from abroadcast receiver, in particular although not exclusively a receiversuch as an entry-level set-top box having no bi-directional dataconnection, referred to herein as a non-connected STB.

BACKGROUND

Collecting data about an audience's viewing habits, which channels arewatched and when (i.e. which programs are watched) is useful tobroadcasters to judge the popularity of programming. Connected receiversthat have a return path to the broadcaster or other service providers,either via the Internet or over a dial-up line, facilitate thecollection of this data. However, large segments of the market, inparticular in developing countries, do not have such a return path, forexample where non-connected STBs are prevalent.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings illustrate some specific embodiments by way ofexample to further the understanding of the disclosure. Specifically:

FIG. 1 illustrates a broadcast system;

FIGS. 2A-2D illustrate data transmission processes in the system of FIG.1;

FIGS. 3A-3C illustrate a process for data compression used in theprocess of FIG. 2A;

FIGS. 4A and 4B illustrate a process for generating and using channelviewing frequencies for data compression; and

FIG. 5 illustrates a computing device that is used in some embodimentsto implement the disclosed processes.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In overview, aspects of the disclosure provide a television broadcastreceiver, for example a set-top box or television set for terrestrial,cable and/or satellite broadcasts, comprising a memory for storingchannel view data encoding channel view events and a processor. Theprocessor stores channel view data in the memory and generates a signalencoding the channel view data. The signal is an audio and/or videosignal. The processor then renders the signal and causes the signal tobe presented to a viewer for capture using a capture device. Optionally,a prompt prompting the user to capture the signal may be caused to bepresented.

A channel view event may be one or more of the following events: displayof a channel defined by start time and duration; display of a channelstarted; display of a channel ended;

switch from one channel to another; scheduling a recording on a channel;recording a program on a channel; display of a particular program orseries; scheduling a recording for a particular program or series;recording a particular program or series; displaying or skipping of anadvertisement; etc.

Advantageously, by presenting a signal that can be captured by theviewer with a signal capture device, such as a mobile phone, viewingdata can be transferred via the signal capture device as described belowwithout the need for a back channel connection at the receiver,enabling, for example, viewing data to be collected from non-connectedSTBs.

The signal may be a 2-dimensional pattern, such as a QR code, a HCCBcode (Microsoft Research, “High Capacity Color Barcode Technology”,incorporated herein by reference) or HCC2D code (“High Capacity ColoredTwo Dimensional code”, IMCSIT, 2010, incorporated herein by reference)encoding the channel view data and displayed on a display device such asa television screen. Alternatively or additionally, the signal maycomprise an audio signal, for example encoding the data using frequencymodulation, as is well known in the field of computer modems. The signalmay be generated periodically.

The receiver may, in some embodiments, receive information indicative ofthe frequency with which channels are viewed and use the information toencode channel view events. In this way, smaller (in terms of bits)symbols can be chosen for more frequent channels, reducing the number ofbits required to encode the channel view data. The information may bereceived in a broadcast, for example as part of conditional accesssystem (CAS) data such as in an entitlement management message (EMM) oras an over the air (OTA) software update. The information may indicateviewing frequency by the order of channels in an ordered list ofchannels. The symbols used for designating channels on the receiver maybe logical channel numbers (LCN) such as numbers or alphanumeric symbolsor may be any other set of symbols capable of identifying the broadcastchannels. Alternatively, the receiver may receive information assigningsymbols for designating channels to respective channels, wherein theassignment has been made based on viewing frequency, for example usingentropy encoding. In either case, the symbols may be used for moreefficient encoding of channel view events, in particular if the viewingfrequency information or the assignment of symbols to channels is basedon viewing frequencies measured at the receiver (as opposed to viewingfrequencies accumulated from multiple receivers or globally).

In some embodiments, encoding channel view events comprises encodingchannel view events using a duration indication and a start timeindication for each channel view event and the respectiverepresentations of the duration and/or start time indications areselected dynamically. For example, the time units of duration and/or thereference point for the start time may be selected dynamically.

Further aspects of the disclosure provide a method of receivinginformation about channel view events from a broadcast receiver. Asignal encoding channel view data is received. The signal is a stillimage or video signal and/or an audio signal and the channel view dataencodes channel view events. The signal is decoded to obtain informationabout channel view events. Obtaining information about channel viewevents may comprise decoding the signal to obtain the channel view dataand decoding the channel view data to obtain information about channelview events. In some embodiments, prior to receiving the signal, thesignal has been captured from the receiver by a viewer using a signalcapture device, for example a mobile phone, a digital still or videocamera, a portable computer with image and/or sound recordingcapabilities, etc. The viewer may be a subscriber of broadcast servicesprovided by a broadcast provider, in which case the signal may bereceived by the broadcast provider and transmitted to a data collectionservice provider (which may be identical to the broadcast provider).

The broadcast provider typically broadcasts the channels, for examplefrom a head end. The data collection service provider typically providesthe data collection services. It may be the same entity as themanufacturer or distributor of the receiver. The broadcast and datacollection service provider may be the same or different entities. Thedata collection service provider, in some embodiments, decodes thesignal and channel view data and provides the information to thebroadcast provider. For example, the signal may be received by thebroadcast provider when the subscriber renews his or her subscription.In some embodiments, the decoding happens on the signal capture deviceand viewing data is transmitted from signal capture device, for exampledirectly to the broadcast provider. In some embodiments, the broadcastprovider receives the signal and decoding happens at the broadcastprovider.

In some embodiments, the viewing information is used, for example by thebroadcast or data collection service provider, to compute a viewingfrequency for a set of channels broadcast to the receiver for use inassociating LCNs or channel symbols with broadcast channels at thereceiver. Alternatively, the assignment may be made at the broadcast ordata collection service provider (or elsewhere) and informationassociating symbols and channels based on the viewing frequency may betransmitted to the receiver. In some embodiments, the LCNs or symbolsmay be local to the receiver, for example derived at or for the receiveror selected by the receiver from a number of sets of assigned symbols.The LCNs or symbols may be used to generate the signal. For example,viewing events may be stored using the LCNs or symbols. In someembodiments, information indicative of the viewing frequency for the setof channels (or information associating symbols and channels, as thecase may be) is broadcast to the receiver, for example as part ofmanagement information in a conditional access system, or as an OTAsoftware update and may be specific to an individual receiver, comprisedifferent sets of symbol/channel associations for the receiver to pickfrom or may apply globally to a set of receivers.

Some aspects relate to a method of assigning symbols to channels, foruse by receivers in encoding channel view data. The symbols are assignedto respective channels based on viewing frequency of the channels togenerate a channel map, that is information associating the symbols torespective channels. The assignment is made such that smaller symbols(in terms of the bits required to represent the symbol) are assigned tomore frequently viewed channels, so that data compression can beimproved by using the symbols to represent channel view events. Viewingfrequency may be determined from data from a single receiver, a group ofreceivers or globally. The channel map may be transmitted to one or morereceivers from which viewing frequency data was obtained, for example byreceiving channel view data from the one or more receivers. The channelmap may be specific to viewing frequencies at a particular receiver andmay be transmitted to that receiver by broadcasting as part of an EMMmessage. Alternatively, a number of channel maps may be defined usingrespective sets of viewing frequencies and transmitted to the one ormore receivers, with each receiver also receiving an identifieridentifying the channel map to use, for example in an EMM message. Theidentified channel map may have been determined for the receiver inquestion, or for a group of related receivers, for example related bydemographics or user profiles. In yet other embodiments, viewingfrequency is collected globally and a single channel map is transmittedto a set of receivers, for example all receivers receiving a particularbroadcast service.

While some aspects of the disclosure are described in terms of storingchannel view data and generating a signal encoding the channel viewdata, the disclosure is not so limited. Aspects of the disclosure extendto embodiments in which the broadcast television receiver stores anykind of data and generates and causes presentation of an audio or videosignal encoding the data for capture by the viewer with a signal capturedevice. In particular, the data may be dynamic data, that is data thatmay change over time and is collected (and stored) by the televisionbroadcast receiver over time. Examples of such dynamic data, other thanchannel view data, are settings such as language settings, favouritechannels, etc; selected language if programs are available in multiplelanguages; data relating to teletext usage or other interactiveservices; stand-by times; etc. The encoding and/or compression algorithmused, if any, may depend on the specific type of data, while thetransformation of the bits of the resulting code into a signal to bepresented may be the same for the different types of data (or may beadapted to take account of different data capacity requirements).

Aspects of the disclosure further extend to one or more computerreadable non-transitory media or a computer program product forcapturing a signal, for example as described above, indicative ofviewing data, and for providing the signal or data encoded in the signalto a third party, for example a broadcast provider. Aspect furtherextend to a mobile device, such as a mobile phone comprising suchnon-transitory media or computer program product. Yet further aspectsextend to a method of presenting viewing data as implemented by areceiver as described above and to a system having means forimplementing such a method and/or methods as described above. Somespecific embodiments will now be described with reference to theaccompanying drawings.

With reference to FIG. 1, a broadcast system 100 comprises a receiver102, for example a non-connected set-top box or other non-connectedreceiver, a display device 104, for example a television set, abroadcast provider 106, for example comprising an arrangement of one ormore servers and/or data centres, a data collection service provider108, for example comprising an arrangement of one or more servers and/ordata centres, and a capture device 110, for example a mobile phoneequipped with a camera and/or a sound capture device, such as a smartphone. The broadcast provider 106 and data collection service provider108 are in communication over a communications network, for example theInternet. The capture device 110 may also be in communication with thebroadcast provider 106 and/or the data collection service provider 108over the same or a different communications network.

Channel view data 112 is captured and stored by the receiver 102 and acode 114 (also referred to as a signal) is created and presented on thedisplay device 104, for example on a display screen in case of an imageor video signal or using loudspeakers of the display device in case ofan audio signal. The code is captured by the capture device 110 and istransmitted to the data collection service provider 108, for example viathe broadcast provider 106. The data collection service provider 108extracts the channel view data and makes it available to the broadcastprovider 106, either enabling access to the data or sending it to thebroadcast provider 106. The code 114 may be transmitted from the capturedevice 110 to the broadcast provider 106 and/or data collection serviceprovider 108 over a communications network (for example the Internet).Alternatively, the code 114 can be transmitted to the broadcast provider106 (or data collection service provider 108) by physically taking thecapture device 110 to an outlet or representative of the relevantprovider, where the code is captured either optically (or acoustically,as the case may be) or over a wired or short-range wireless dataconnection and transmitted onward to the relevant provider, for exampleover the same or a different communications network.

Processes involved in the transmission of channel view data in thesystem described with reference to FIG. 1 are now described withreference to FIGS. 2A-2D. At step 202, the receiver 102 captures andstores channel view data, that is data about channel view events, forexample as defined above. Then, for example in response to storing a newchannel view event or periodically, the receiver 102 compresses thechannel view data, for example as described in detail below, at step204. This may, for example, occur monthly when smart card rights of asmart card of a CAS system implemented on the receiver 102 expire or areabout to expire. At step 206, a code, for example a HCC2D code (or adifferent visual or audio code) is generated by the receiver 102 and atstep 208 the receiver causes presentation/display of the code on thedisplay device 104, for example by sending an appropriate signal to thedisplay device 104 if the display device 104 is separate from thereceiver. When presenting the code, the receiver 102 may also causepresentation/display of a prompt to the user on the display device 104in the same way.

Examples of suitable codes suitable for analogue SD television screensare 80×80 dots or squares arrayed in a column and row layout andcomprising 8 colour values, which in some embodiments can encode up to 2KB of data (ignoring error correction codes). For a HD television screenthe number of dots/squares can be increased to 120×120 dots with 8colours, enabling encoding of more than 5 KB. Some embodiments use 6instead of 8 colours and may use other element shapes, for exampletriangles. To better exploit wide-screen displays, such as 16:9 aspectratio displays, generally rectangular (rather than square) arrangementsand/or elements may be used. In practice it has been found that 1.5 KBis sufficient to encode channel view data for a 30 day period, forexample.

A viewer, when prompted by the receiver 102, captures the code 114 atstep 210 with the capture device 110, for example taking a picture ofthe display on the display device 104 with an internal camera of a smartphone. In some embodiments, a dedicated application is run to that endon the capture device 110 to increase robustness of the capture andallow higher resolution, for example in the same way as panoramicpicture capture on smart phones. The dedicated application may alsohandle other aspects, such as payment for renewing a subscription to oneor more services provided by the broadcast provider 106. In otherembodiments, the code 114 is captured as a digital image using a cameraapplication running on the capture device 110.

At step 212 the viewer transmits the code 114 to the broadcast provider106 (or data collection service provider 108 or other entity). Inembodiments in which the capture device 110 has an internet connection,the code 114 may be transmitted over the internet or other networkconnection, for example using the same portal used to renew the user'ssmart card. Where an internet connection is not available, the code 114may be transmitted, for example, by multi-media message (MMS). Wherethis is also not possible or not desirable, the code may be transmittedto the broadcast provider 106 by taking the capture device to an outletor shop associated with the broadcast provider 106, for example at thesame time as renewing the smart card. The code can be captured at theshop by taking a picture of a screen of the capture device, byshort-range wireless connection, wired connection, etc., followed bytransmission of the code to the broadcast provider 106, for example,over a communications network.

At step 214, in case of transmission to the broadcast provider 106, thebroadcast provider 106 receives the code and transmits it to the datacollection service provider 108 at step 216. The data collection serviceprovider 108 receives the code at step 218, extracts the channel viewdata at step 220 and provides the channel view data to the broadcastprovider 106 at step 222. The broadcast provider 106 receives oraccesses the channel view data at step 224 and uses the data, forexample for audience measurements or as described further below. Thedata may be provided to the broadcast provider 106 as extracted, i.e. incompressed form or may be processed to extract information about viewingevents to provide to the broadcast provider 106 in a format that isreadily useable by the broadcast provider 106. It will be appreciatedthat, while a certain division of the above steps has been described,the assignment and order of steps can vary from embodiment toembodiment. For example, some or all of the described processing can becarried out by the capture device 110, and some or all of the processingdone by the data collection service provider 108 may be done by thebroadcast provider 106 and vice versa, with corresponding changes in thedescribed data flow.

With reference to FIG. 3A, a process for data compression at step 204 isnow described with numerals in brackets referring to steps in the flowdiagram illustrated in FIG. 3A. A channel view (or zapping) event isread (302) and a local channel number (LCN) is written to a data stringto form the channel view data (304), followed by encoding and writing ofthe start time of the event (306) and the duration (308), for example asdescribed below with reference to FIGS. 3B and 3C, respectively. Then,the process attempts to read a next channel view event (310) anddetermines if a further event was found (312). If a further event isfound the process loops back to step 304 to write the LCN for the nextevent to the data string. Otherwise (the event just written was the lastevent), the process writes an end code (314), for example eight zerobits, and the process ends (316). Thus, the data is written as a datastring representing a set of records, each record comprising a LCN, thecorresponding start time (for example relative to the start of thecurrent year) and the duration (for example in minutes).

With reference to FIG. 3B, a process for encoding a start time at step306 is now described with numerals in brackets referring to steps in theflow diagram illustrated in FIG. 3B. A determination is made (318) ifthe read event is the first event written to the data string and, if so,a two bit identifier indicating this is written to the data string(320), followed by number of minutes from the beginning of the currentyear to the start of the event (322) and the process ends (324). If thedetermination at step 318 is negative, a determination is made (326) ifthe event is contiguous from the previous event, i.e. a direct channelswitch occurred, for example to the nearest minute. If the determinationIs positive a different identifier, for example a single zero bit, iswritten to the data string (328) and the process ends (324). If thedetermination is negative, a determination is made (330) if the currentevent is less than 1024 minutes from the end of the previous event andif so a further identifier indicating this, for example a different twobit identifier, is written to the data stream (332) as well as thenumber of minutes that have elapsed since the end of the last event(334) and the process ends (324). If the determination at step 330 isnegative, the process continues with steps 320 and 322 described aboveand ends at step 324.

With reference to FIG. 3C, a process for encoding a duration at step 208is now described with numerals in brackets referring to steps in theflow diagram illustrated in FIG. 3C. A determination is made (336) ifthe duration is less than 64 minutes and if so a two bit identifier iswritten to the data string (338), as well as the number of minutes(340).

Otherwise, a determination is made (342) if the duration is less thanfive hours and if so a different two bit identifier is written to thedata string (344) followed by the number of minutes divided by four,modulus one (346). If the determination at step 342 is also negative, adetermination is made (348) if the duration is less than 22 hours and ifso a different one bit identifier is written to the data string (350)followed by the number of minutes divided by eight, modulus one orrounded to the nearest minute (352). In any of these three cases theprocess ends a step 354 subsequent to writing the indication of theduration. If the determination at step 348 is negative (the duration is22 hours or more), an eight bit identifier is written, for example eightone bits, and a new channel view event is created (358) to encode theremaining duration and the process ends at step 354.

One possible use of the viewing data is to assign LCNs or symbolsrepresenting LCNs to channels such that LCNs or symbols that can beencoded with relatively less bits are assigned to channels that arewatched frequently and LCNs or symbols that require relatively more bitsto encode are assigned to less frequent channels. In this way, the LCNsor symbols can be used in an adapted compression algorithm in which theLCN field is not of fixed size but can vary so that overall less spaceis taken up by the LCN field due to less bits being required to writehigh-frequency LCNs. The LCNs or symbols may be assigned to channelsusing entropy encoding. It will be appreciated that existing LCNs may infact be fixed for a given network, region, country or otheradministrative grouping. In this case, LCNs can not be changed but thesymbols representing the LCNs may be adapted as described herein.

A process for deriving and using such LCN (symbol) assignments is nowdescribed with reference to FIGS. 4A and 4B. At step 402, information onviewing events collected from all or a sub-set of subscribers isanalysed and viewing frequencies for the available broadcast channelsare determined at step 404. In some embodiments, viewing frequenciesfrom a single subscriber are analysed, so that the resultingrepresentation is specific to the single subscriber in question,enabling yet further gains in compression. Information encoding theviewing frequencies may be provided in various ways, for example in theform of an ordered list of channels in order of frequency, or byexplicit assignment of a mapping between physical channels and LCNs orsymbols, a mapping between existing LCNs and symbols, or betweenphysical channels and viewing frequencies. At step 406, the viewingfrequency information or LCN or symbol mapping information is broadcastto all subscribers, the subset, or to the single subscriber, as the casemay be. The information, in particular in the latter case, can bebroadcast using the infrastructure of a CAS, for example transmittingthe information to the single subscriber as part of an EMM, thusenabling the set-top box of the single subscriber to adapt its channelencoding in a way specific to the viewing habits of the singlesubscriber.

The receiver 102 receives the frequency information or mapping at step408, assigns the LCNs or symbols to physical channels (or individualstreams of multiplexed physical channels, referred to hereininterchangeably as “channels”) accordingly at step 410 and uses theassigned LCNs or symbols for compression at step 412, as describedabove, only writing the number of bits necessary for each LCN or symbolat step 304.

FIG. 5 illustrates a block diagram of one implementation of a computingdevice 500 as, in dependence on the embodiments, may implement orpartially implement the receiver 102, broadcast provider 106infrastructure and/or data collection service provider 108infrastructure. A set of instructions, for causing the computing device500 to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein,may be executed in the computing device 500. The computing device may beconnected (e.g., networked) to other machines in a Local Area Network(LAN), an intranet, an extranet, or the Internet. The computing devicemay operate in the capacity of a server or a client machine in aclient-server network environment, or as a peer machine in apeer-to-peer (or distributed) network environment. The computing devicemay be a personal computer (PC), a tablet computer, a set-top box (STB),a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a cellular telephone, a webappliance, a server, a network router, switch or bridge, or any machinecapable of executing a set of instructions (sequential or otherwise)that specify actions to be taken by that machine. Further, while only asingle computing device is illustrated, the term “computing device”shall also be taken to include any collection of machines (e.g.,computers) that individually or jointly execute a set (or multiple sets)of instructions to perform any one or more of the methodologiesdiscussed herein.

The example computing device 500 includes a processing device 502, amain memory 504 (e.g., read-only memory (ROM), flash memory, dynamicrandom access memory (DRAM) such as synchronous DRAM (SDRAM) or RambusDRAM (RDRAM), etc.), a static memory 506 (e.g., flash memory, staticrandom access memory (SRAM), etc.), and a secondary memory (e.g., a datastorage device 518), which communicate with each other via a bus 530.

Processing device 502 represents one or more general-purpose processorssuch as a microprocessor, central processing unit, or the like. Moreparticularly, the processing device 502 may be a complex instruction setcomputing (CISC) microprocessor, reduced instruction set computing(RISC) microprocessor, very long instruction word (VLIW) microprocessor,processor implementing other instruction sets, or processorsimplementing a combination of instruction sets. Processing device 502may also be one or more special-purpose processing devices such as anapplication specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmablegate array (FPGA), a digital signal processor (DSP), network processor,or the like. Processing device 502 is configured to execute theprocessing logic (instructions 522) for performing the operations andsteps discussed herein.

The computing device 500 may further include a network interface device508. The computing device 500 also may include a video display unit 510(e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD) or a cathode ray tube (CRT)), analphanumeric input device 512 (e.g., a keyboard or touchscreen), acursor control device 514 (e.g., a mouse or touchscreen), and an audiodevice 516 (e.g., a speaker).

The data storage device 518 may include one or more machine-readablestorage media (or more specifically one or more non-transitorycomputer-readable storage media) 528 on which is stored one or more setsof instructions 522 embodying any one or more of the methodologies orfunctions described herein. The instructions 522 may also reside,completely or at least partially, within the main memory 504 and/orwithin the processing device 502 during execution thereof by thecomputer system 500, the main memory 504 and the processing device 502also constituting computer-readable storage media.

In some cases, in particular referring to the receiver 102, thecomputing device may further comprise custom circuits and/or modules,for example to implement broadcast receiving and decodingfunctionalities, CAS functionalities, and so forth.

The various methods described above may be implemented by a computerprogram. The computer program may include computer code arranged toinstruct a computer to perform the functions of one or more of thevarious methods described above. The computer program and/or the codefor performing such methods may be provided to an apparatus, such as acomputer, on one or more computer readable media or, more generally, acomputer program product. The computer readable media may be transitoryor non-transitory. The one or more computer readable media could be, forexample, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, orsemiconductor system, or a propagation medium for data transmission, forexample for downloading the code over the Internet. Alternatively, theone or more computer readable media could take the form of one or morephysical computer readable media such as semiconductor or solid statememory, magnetic tape, a removable computer diskette, a random accessmemory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a rigid magnetic disc, and anoptical disk, such as a CD-ROM, CD-R/VV or DVD.

In an implementation, the modules, components and other featuresdescribed herein can be implemented as discrete hardware components orintegrated in the functionality of hardware components such as ASICS,FPGAs, DSPs or similar devices.

A “hardware component” is a tangible (e.g., non-transitory) physicalcomponent (e.g., a set of one or more processors) capable of performingcertain operations and may be configured or arranged in a certainphysical manner. A hardware component may include dedicated circuitry orlogic that is permanently configured to perform certain operations. Ahardware component may be or include a special-purpose processor, suchas a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or an ASIC. A hardwarecomponent may also include programmable logic or circuitry that istemporarily configured by software to perform certain operations.

Accordingly, the phrase “hardware component” should be understood toencompass a tangible entity that may be physically constructed,permanently configured (e.g., hardwired), or temporarily configured(e.g., programmed) to operate in a certain manner or to perform certainoperations described herein.

In addition, the modules and components can be implemented as firmwareor functional circuitry within hardware devices. Further, the modulesand components can be implemented in any combination of hardware devicesand software components, or only in software (e.g., code stored orotherwise embodied in a machine-readable medium or in a transmissionmedium).

Unless specifically stated otherwise, as apparent from the followingdiscussion, it is appreciated that throughout the description,discussions utilizing terms such as “receiving”, “determining”,“comparing”, “enabling”, “maintaining,” “identifying”, “storing”,“generating”, “causing”, “decoding”, “encoding” or the like, refer tothe actions and processes of a computer system, or similar electroniccomputing device, that manipulates and transforms data represented asphysical (electronic) quantities within the computer system's registersand memories into other data similarly represented as physicalquantities within the computer system memories or registers or othersuch information storage, transmission or display devices.

It is to be understood that the above description is intended to beillustrative, and not restrictive. Many other implementations will beapparent to those of skill in the art upon reading and understanding theabove description. Although the present disclosure has been describedwith reference to specific example implementations, it will berecognized that the disclosure is not limited to the implementationsdescribed, but can be practiced with modification and alteration withinthe spirit and scope of the appended claims. Accordingly, thespecification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative senserather than a restrictive sense. The scope of the disclosure should,therefore, be determined with reference to the appended claims, alongwith the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A television broadcast receiver comprising:a memory for storing channel view data encoding channel view events anda processor configured to: store channel view data in the memory;generate a signal encoding the channel view data, wherein the signal isan audio and/or video signal; and cause the signal to be presented tothe viewer for capture by the viewer with a signal capture device,wherein the channel view data is used by the processor to encode channelview events such that smaller symbols are used for more frequentlyviewed channels.
 2. The receiver according to claim 1, whereingenerating the signal comprises generating a 2-dimensional patternencoding the channel view data and presenting the signal comprisescausing display of the 2-dimensional pattern on a display device.
 3. Thereceiver according to claim 1, wherein the processor is configured toperiodically generate the signal and cause it to be presented.
 4. Thereceiver according to claim 1, wherein the processor is configured toreceive information indicative of the frequency with which channels areviewed or indicative of a mapping between channels and symbolsrepresenting channels and to use the information to encode channel viewevents.
 5. The receiver according to claim 1, wherein the processor isconfigured to receive information indicative of the frequency with whichchannels are viewed and to use the information to encode channel viewevents, wherein using the information to encode channel view eventscomprises associating each channel with a respective symbol such thatthe number of bits needed to encode each symbol are negativelycorrelated with the viewing frequency of the corresponding channel andusing the symbols to encode channel view events.
 6. The receiveraccording to claim 1, wherein encoding channel view events comprisesencoding channel view events using a duration indication and a starttime indication for each channel view event and wherein respectiverepresentations of the duration and/or start time indications areselected dynamically.
 7. The receiver as claimed in claim 1, wherein thereceiver is a set-top box or television set configured to receive one ormore of terrestrial, cable or satellite broadcasts.
 8. A method ofreceiving information about channel view events from a broadcastreceiver, the method comprising: receiving a signal encoding channelview data, wherein the signal is a still image or video signal and/or anaudio signal and the channel view data encodes channel view events;decoding the signal to obtain information about channel view events;using the information to compute a viewing frequency for a set ofchannels broadcast to the receiver for use in associating logicalchannel symbols with broadcast channels in the set of channels.
 9. Themethod according to claim 8, wherein, prior to receiving the signal, thesignal has been captured from the receiver by a viewer using a signalcapture device.
 10. The method according to claim 9, wherein the signalcapture device is a mobile phone.
 11. The method according to claim 9,wherein the viewer is a subscriber of broadcast services provided by abroadcast provider, the signal is received by the broadcast providerand, optionally transmitted to a data collection service provider,wherein the data collection service provider decodes the signal andprovides the channel view data and/or the information about channel viewevents to the broadcast provider.
 12. The method according to claim 11,wherein the signal is received by the broadcast provider when thesubscriber renews his subscription.
 13. The method according to claim 8,the method comprising broadcasting, to the receiver, informationindicative of the viewing frequency for the set of channels orinformation associating logical channel symbols with broadcast channelsin the set of channels in accordance with the viewing frequency.
 14. Themethod according to claim 13, the method comprising broadcasting theinformation to the receiver as part of management information in aconditional access system.
 15. A television broadcast receivercomprising: a memory for storing channel view data encoding channel viewevents and a processor configured to: store channel view data in thememory; generate a signal encoding the channel view data, wherein thesignal is an audio and/or video signal; and cause the signal to bepresented to the viewer for capture by the viewer with a signal capturedevice, wherein the processor is configured to receive informationindicative of the frequency with which channels are viewed and to usethe information to encode channel view events, wherein using theinformation to encode channel view events comprises associating eachchannel with a respective symbol such that the number of bits needed toencode each symbol are negatively correlated with the viewing frequencyof the corresponding channel and using the symbols to encode channelview events.